Ebay fakes

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

I'm a regular Ebay buyer and as everyone knows, there are lots of fake items sold there, in amongst the genuine. Some fake sellers even use the word GENUINE in the description, so if my application is critical and tend to ask the seller if they standby that word in the description, before making a purchase - making it clear if they are not they will get them returned for refund.

I recently went shopping for a couple of guaranteed genuine 3400mA

18650 on Ebay, found a seller and posed the question and the seller replied with he couldn't be bothered with the agro and promptly blocked me. Which left me wondering was he or was he not selling fakes? Sometimes fake items are acceptable, sometimes not - so I ask to save their and my time.

My application for the 18650's meant that I would need almost the full

3400mA capacity, with no possibility to disturb the monitoring process mid-way, to recharge batteries.

I ended up buying from a well known none-ebay seller paying a pound per item more.

[Brian Gaff (Sofa)]

Well nobody has to sell to anyone and really if he was selling genuine ones then he is as they say cutting off his nose to spite his face and that is his problem. My guess is that he did not know either and did not want any hassle. Brian

[Richard]

Shucks. When all the honest dealers have been forced out of the market place because people are reluctant to pay the going rate for non-fake stuff, what are you going to do?

[alan_m]

Any quoted specification that is better than that quoted for the leading (reputable) brands is likely to be a fake or just a a outright lie with respect to the quoted figures. In this case the 3400mAH figure appears to be suspect from any source. Panasonic come close but they do more than one version of the battery with the lesser one being 2900mAH

[alan_m]

Often the people selling the fakes on Ebay or Amazon marketplace are charging the same or more. They are catering for the people who think that if it's cheap its crap and if it's expensive it must be genuine.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

You actually know the going rate for a genuine item, then?

I take it you have Turnip's crystal ball?

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Very true.

It is always worth checking the feedback of the seller.

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

alan_m wrote on 06/06/2020 :

True a few years ago, but genuine capacities have been increased since then. The ones I actually purchased are rated 3400mA, sold by a company which has them encased in a custom package bearing their name. The company has been around for a decade, with a massive reputation.

They are in use at the moment and showing every indication of being the genuine 3400mA I ordered.

Ebay is just my first stop for so many items.

[Andrew]

I thought that was easily faked too, especially the people using a .co.uk web address but sending the stuff from China ?

[tabbypurr]

could be anything - seller knowing they have fakes, seller who has no idea, seller that's too busy selling to want to deal with such customers, minion that's only paid per customer that buys, etc etc etc.

NT

[Richard]

No, but the enthusiasm of punters to not support genuine retailers is of benefit to the criminally minded purveyors of faked products.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

I'm not quite sure why anyone would support fake products if they don't do what they claim?

And I'm sure PayPal/Ebay just love having to refund dissatisfied customers.

[Cursitor Doom]

I've had a lot of fake voltage regulators (of all things) from Ebay. In fact it's a really bad place to purchase electronic components if you're fussy about quality. If it's anything critical, I would NEVER buy it from Ebay - only from a known, accredited independent source. But expect to pay more (sometimes a lot more). Depends how fussy you are I s'pose.

[Cursitor Doom]

+1

[GB]

I'm not sure how expensive these are, and what profit he expects to make after all the ebay/paypal/postage costs? If it's 30p, I really don't see that it's worth his while answering questions. If it's £30, then I would expect an answer.

[Richard]

So you think that the fakers and scammers are still booming because no-one buys their stuff. OK.

[Adrian Caspersz]

It's a genuine compatible, honest guv ...

I once found myself in the strange position of having to buy a well reviewed compatible device in preference to the original, as I couldn't

100% determine if the originals offered on Amazon were real or actually fake.

Happily the compatible item worked well, so Sony lost that 3D glasses purchase ...

[alan_m]

The biggest problem with Amazon is that the review you are reading may not be for the actual item on sale. They have a habit of combining reviews for similar items (or for genuine and fake items) sold by different sellers - including items sold by Amazon themselves and their marketplace sellers.

Sometimes it's obvious from what is written in the reviews that customers are writing about different items such as different models of electronic boxes to the one being offered for sale. Sometimes its obvious from the 5 star and 1 star reviews that the items being reviewed are different.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

There are long established UK retailers who sell electronic components on Ebay.

But I've no doubt you just go for the cheapest so you can moan about Chinese rubbish on here.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

I've personally not had much in the way of problems with fakes from Ebay. I did once by a new Nokia phone from them that was very obviously a fake, as bits of it simply didn't work. And got a full refund. The genuine one I got after that wasn't much more expensive, but still a considerable saving from shop prices.

Fakers rely on those buying their products either not to realise it isn't up to spec or not being bothered to claim from Ebay.